Saturday, January 24, 2015

Logos 6 Bible Software Review - Part 1

[Disclaimer: I received the new Logos 6 Gold from Faithlife (the new parent
company of Logos and the related software and online services) as an upgrade to
my existing Logos 5 Gold. The only stipulation was that I write a fair and
honest review and post it on this blog.]I have long used Logos Bible software and
have reviewed
versions and aspects of it in the past. I have primarily used it for
original language study of the Bible and to gain access to the numerous primary
and secondary resources available for Bible study.

Background, Packages, Upgrades:

In the history of Logos, there was a significant transition from (Libronix)
version 3 to (Logos) 4. The transitions from versions 4 to 5 and now from 5 to 6
have been incremental, but in both instances have shown significant enhancements
and important resource additions. As has become their practice, Logos 6 is
offered in a range of "families": Starter, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum,
Diamond, Portfolio, and Collector's. These range in price from $295 to $10,800,
but there are regular sales (e.g., currently 15% off as I write) and academic
discounts available. There are similarly priced tradition-specific packages that
have a different collection of resources that include more denomination
theological resources than biblical or generic ones. (Anglican, Baptist,
Lutheran [HERE
is my review of Lutheran Gold], Pentecostal & Charismatic, Reformed, and SDA.
Verbum is the analogous package for Roman
Catholicism.)

Getting the free engine update: This allows one to keep all existing
resources, provides the new interface, but does not add any new datasets,
resources, or related features. It will probably be released in February
2015 or so.

Crossgrade: A crossgrade assumes you have an existing Logos library,
and the price to crossgrade depends on whether you want a "core,"
"feature," or "extended" crossgrade. The core crossgrade only give you
the new Logos 6 tools and media. The feature crossgrade adds the new
datasets, and the extended crossgrade adds new resources. A crossgrade
can still be somewhat expensive (for my existing Gold library, the cost
would have been $124, $175, or $226 after discounts), and in my case, it
would have made more sense to upgrade and gain even more resources for a
marginally greater expense.

Upgrade: A person retains rights to the resources in your existing
library, but in upgrading to Logos 6, you have the option of moving up
at the same level or to another package like the ones I listed earlier.
The Logos website provides tools for comparing what is new in Logos 6
and what would be new for you depending on your upgrade package.

Installation and Getting Started

Installation is straightforward and occurred without incident. Upon placing
the order for the crossgrade or upgrade, users receive a confirmation email with
a download link. This is just a small installer file. Run it, and when Logos
starts, it will also begin downloading all the applicable new resources and
datasets and updates. Logos takes care of things without user intervention. The
main thing is to have a fast Internet connection and allow plenty of time for
all the downloads to occur. (In my case, with a good connection and fast
computer, it took about 15 minutes, but Logos has had regular download updates
ever since.) You also have to allow time for Logos to index its resources. This
runs in the background (and can be paused if you want) and can potentially slow
down other computer functions.

If you are already using Logos 4 or 5, you should be able to start using the
program right away since the interface is largely unchanged. For those less
familiar with Logos, they have quite a few resources for getting you started.
For basic training, start HERE and
choose your platform (Windows, Mac, iPhone/iPad, Kindle Fire, Android). A
desktop/laptop device is where Logos best displays its capabilities, and
training for that is HERE.
There are 28 quickstart videos which will show both old and new users some of
the capabilities of the program and how to use them.I am using Logos6 on a Windows 7 SP1 system with 12GB RAM, Intel i7 at
3.40GHz, and the program running on a SSD drive. I.e., though this system is now
2.5 years old, it is still decently fast. Complicated searches may take a bit to
run, but in general the program runs acceptably well without any annoying lag.
Logos does
suggest some ways to optimize performance that help if you have a slower
system.

In Part 2, I will describe some of the new features to Logos6 that I most
appreciate.